baptism by fire

Today I had clinical on an OB floor and it was so wonderful! As soon as I got there my teacher said "Kathleen, can I see you for a minute?" But when I followed her I found out that "a minute" meant "the mom you will be with today is delivering! Here, put on these gloves, this face shield, and hold this leg!"

It was so amazing! I had never seen a baby being born before and this was definately a neat way to experience delivery for the first time! Then I got to stay with mom and baby all day and take care of them. I had no idea what was going on half of the time, though. It was such a learning experience for me!

Rock For Life

w

I have always wanted to work labor and delivery and now that I've been there I really love it, but I know that that is a lot of contraception and sterilization involved in OB. It makes me really sad, because my textbook (as well as my whole class) is so "contraception happy." One day we had an hour and a half long discussion about why "abstinence is the dumbest thing in the world" and "why can't they just not teach them about abstinence in schools and just give them the contraception like they want."

w

I know that the "abstinence" that is taught in school is just taught as the most effective method of birth control. I can see how it would not be appealing to teenagers when it is presented as that and then after they talk about abstinence they talk about all of the other forms of contraception and how effective they are and how fun sex is. Presented in that way, I suppose it would not be very effective.

w

And everyone seems to want to have sex before marriage anyways. When my class was having this discussion, I was trying to think of how I would teach my children that abstinence is the best way and I realized that in order to help teens to see this, you have to get to them before the world does. From the time they are little, a love for Jesus, a respect for their bodies, knowledge of the value of purity, and understanding why what the world tells us is a lie would have to be instilled into their minds, hearts, and souls.

w

What grace it must take to be a parent!

w

Jesus, if it is Your will that I become a mother someday, please give me the graces I need - both when I am raising my children, but also now as I prepare for the future and learn about Your truths.

w

Jesus I trust in You.

w

my favorite textbook

So I am now in my second week of classes and things are not going as horribly as I would have expected them to. I was able to get into a chemistry class, which will really help me when I transfer as chemistry is apparently a major pre-requ for most nursing programs. (I always knew DMACC was an odd duck!)

Speaking of odd ducks...attached below is a picture of me wearing my favorite "textbook" (...or at least my favorite thing I had to buy from the school bookstore for class. When I got my chemistry books, the sign that tells you how many textbooks you need for the class said three, but one of them was the goggles). I am also holding a little "prize" my mom brought back for me from her school.


So I am in chemistry and I was also signed up for an online logic class, but my prof seemed a bit forgetful about that class (as in never posted assignments) and when he did write something, it was extremely unspecific, even after being asked for clarification. So I dropped logic last night as I still have 15 credit hours without it. (I only need 12 to be full-time.)

Now that I am only taking three classes at a time, I am going to see about the possiblility of getting a job. There is a knitting shop by my house that seems fun (it's a big pink house), so maybe I'll apply there. But don't expect too much out of this job search. I mostly just want discounted yarn to feed my knitting addiction and Wal-Mart can always supply that for me.

Anyways, I should get back to my homework. I had my first day of clinical today and need to write up a mini report about my day. It was pretty fun. I was nervous at first as I was going to be the only one there from my class (my teacher was only going to show up for a few minutes at the end of the day) and I felt like I had no idea what was going on/what I was supposed to be doing. It was all good, though. I ended up "rooming" patients, which basically means taking them to the back, getting their vitals/height/weight/etc, taking them to their rooms, and asking them about the purpose of their visit/any concerns they had. I felt pretty confident with that by the end of the day.

So tomorrow I'll be ready for OB! (Hopefully I'll get to see a delivery!) I get to do newborn assessments and a postpartum assessment of the mamas.

I feel a lot better about this having had one day.

I hope you all are having a wonderful day!

God bless you!

transfer?

So it's been a while, but let me update you a bit on what's been going on...

From August 10 - August 23, I had been working at the Iowa State Fair at Stockman's Inn. It was pretty fun, although the last few days got really hectic as most of the waitresses went back to college. We started out with about 6 or 7 waitresses for each shift, and the last day we had 3. It was pretty hectic and I ended up breaking down and sobbing in front of my boss for 20 minutes after I forgot about 2 tables and one of them let me know of their displeasure.

Lots of pigs at the fair

But that's over now and I think I'll work there next year again. I just won't work any 11am - 1am shifts anymore. (I worked three of them in a row right before the end of the fair.) My usual shift was 9am - 5pm, which I much preferred.

After the fair was over, I started trying to find a roommate up in Ames so I could feel like I was having somewhat of a typical college life (minus the binge drinking/whatever else people think of automatically when someone says "typical college life"). Then my friend Kim called and said she needed a roommate too, so we started looking for apartments in Des Moines (not Ames at all), but this search has turned out to be fruitless and frustrating. Apparently, there is such a thing called "Section 42" which means "low-income." And if you are a full-time student you are not allowed to live in this type of housing. (Even though being full-time and jobless makes me have a negative income.) But maybe this is for the best...

...Because I have been thinking more and more about transferring to another school. I have over the past year been realizing how much I really don't like DMACC and how much I wish that I had never gone there. So I decided to look into transferring to a university (preferably Catholic) with a nursing program. So far I've found Marquette in Milwaukee, WI and Catholic University of America in Washington, DC and Regis in Denver, CO. I requested more information from all of them and am still looking. If anyone has any suggestions, that would be lovely.

And I do feel a lot better now...there's just the issue of letting Kim know that I probably won't be getting an apartment with her because of the possibility of transferring. Hopefully that goes well and I don't loose the few friends that I have now.

But all will come in God's beautiful will, and I just have to be patient. He will reveal the right path to me, so I have nothing to fear!

Jesus, thank You for Your plans for my life. Help me to hear Your call and to follow You wherever you go!

Jesus, I trust in You!

home

Hey everyone! So I'm home now from my summer adventures! Yesterday my mom and sister and I drove up to Minneapolis, MN to go to the Mall of America for a fun "end of the summer girl's night out." It was pretty fun (except everyone got cranky at times - which I have come to expect). Because NET is based out of St. Paul, MN, I know my way around there fairly well, as I lived around there for part of my life. So last night around 10pm or so my mom wanted to go out for ice cream and champagne. I only knew where the grocery stores were by the NET center, though, so I drove over there and we went to Cub Foods and got three pints of ice cream. We tried to find champagne, but apparently Minnesota can only sell stuff like that in special liquor stores. So we got pina colada wine coolers instead, which weren't very good. After that we spent the night wacthing "Addams Family Values" at the hotel with our mini feast. All in all is was a pretty good little vacation.
-

And I got this lovely tshirt at Urban Outfitters [shown above] to show off my Catholic pride! Woo woo!

Other than that, I start working at the Iowa State Fair tomorrow!

I hope you all have a lovely day!

God bless you!

finally!

So it's been a while since I've written anything on here...

Today is my last full day here in Virginia before I head back home to Iowa. It has been a good summer - difficult at times - but I have had a good time.

Each morning after my aunt's school got out, we went waterskiing at 7am and then I got to go to Mass at 9am! Such a great way to start the morning! I learned to ski on two skis, then I learned to ski with another person at the same time, and this week (after trying for three days) I was able to get up on one ski! (see photo below!) I think I've found my favorite sport of all time! ;)

Last weekend I also got to drive up to Long Island to visit one of my NET teammates, Annie. That was a really good time! We went to a beach by her house on the Long Island Sound and collected a lot of beach glass, which was nice. We also took a ferry up to Connecticut on Sunday so that we could get there (where she lives now - her parents live in Long Island) in time for church and youth group. (She's the youth minister/DRE at her church.) I also made tortillas for her! That was great as it has never been successful for me before.

Then a couple of days later, my aunt and I drove out to Fenwick Island, DE to visit my second cousins at their beach houses. We only stayed one night, but it was long enough for us to go to the boardwalk in Ocean City, MD. It brought back many fun childhood memories as this is where my family went each summer when I was growing up and these were the cousins I spent my time with.

Hmmm... what else? Oh yes! I had my 21st birthday and my family flew out to celebrate with me! That was really wonderful. When they were here we also took a daytrip down to Virginia Beach. It was fun because they had these "no profanity" signs that were like the "no parking" red circle with "@#%$&*" inside of it. I thought it was cute. They had them all over.

Well, with that I am going to get going. I hope that you have a wonderful day! God bless you all!

Jesus, thank you for this wonderful summer, full of its joys and trials. I pray that you would help me to take from it what You want me to learn and help me to follow You more faithfully each day. You're the best ever!

cleansing - ma - fire!

So today I got to go to CONFESSION for the first time since I left Des Moines! It was so so so so wonderful! The priest at the church here is so wonderfully holy and he just encouraged me so much. Confessing to him helped me to realize how much Jesus loves me, even in my sin and wretchedness. I was so happy to be able to go!

Thank you, Jesus for the precious gift of Reconciliation and holy priests! YOU are faithful, my beautiful Savior!

almost done

So my aunt is almost done with school now, which is really nice. I cannot believe how long they had to be here this year! I've already had two months of summer and theirs is just beginning. It seems surreal that the 4th of July is just a week away and the last day of school was Friday.
-
Other than that, I've been working on sewing and knitting projects. I made Lara (my cousin's wife) a knitting needle holder. I really like it a lot! The idea for it came to me in a knitting book that she lent to me while I was learning to do cable knit. They have a lot of patterns to make things in there that I thought were really fun, and I saw two different knitting needle holder patterns. One of them I really liked was not very functional as it was a rolling case and the other was very functional as it hangs on a hanger, but it was rather ugly. So I incorporated the two ideas and made my own! It is really quite super!
-
-
I am excited because Lara really loves it, it can hold several different types and sizes of needles, and I made it without a pattern. (I haven't done that before except from when I made purses, pillows, dolls, or doll dresses as a small child.)
-
So everything has been going well. This Thursday I go back to Des Moines for a week to go to Margaret's wedding! (She was my youth minister/hero back in high school - and hero still today!) I am so excited for her and for Charles.
-
And now I'm off to help my aunt with more paperwork!
-
Have a lovely day!
-
God bless you!
-

reading again

Hey everyone! I'm not dead! I've just been very busy with helping my Aunt at her school!

So things have been going pretty well. I got to see some people who were on NET with me, Anne, Chris Hirniak, and Brianna Duffy, on Monday night as they drove up the east coast from Georgia. (Two of their teammates got married to each other this past weekend.) It was so wonderful to be able to serve them and see them! I am very pleased that they were able to make it up.

And Annie was even able to spend the night, so we spent Tuesday morning boating and swimming and skiing and water tubing on the creek. It was so much fun! She is such a wonderful woman and I was so happy to spend time with her!

Life Giving Love by Kimberly Hahn

_

So I finished reading Love and Responsibility yesterday and today have started Life Giving Love again. I just felt like I needed a little renewal of the beauty of the procreative aspect of love, now that I am renewed on what love is and is not, thanks to our friend, Karol Wojtyla.

_

Tonight I am going to "Operafest" at the University of Mary Washington with my aunt and uncle. They are performing several different songs from several different operas. It will be a lot of fun!

_

bargain hunter

So I am coming back to Des Moines for the first week in July for my friend Margaret's wedding! My aunt is so grateful for my help that she bought me a plane ticket! It is so lovely of her!

Today I went to an outlet mall to get a dress for Margaret's wedding. I ended up finding a really lovely little red dress as well as this green coat. (Don't worry, I won't wear them together.)

Other than that today was pretty good. I taught a ninth grader some math, which was fun. He is such a sweet person! He just moved here from Somalia and had never been to school before. He is learning everything so quickly! I love it when he gets excited after figuring something out!

That's about all! Have a great day!

head up the nose

So let me update you on how everything has been going. My Aunt, Uncle and Cousins had a good time at the wedding in Santa Fe, NM. Below is a picture of my cousin Dave entertaining his sister Ellen's daughter Jessie.

And I had a good time with my grandma last weekend. We just relaxed the rest of the weekend as she was pretty worn out from all of the shopping we did on Saturday and Sunday. She had a good time showing off her "namesake" (that would be me) to all of her friends.

This past week I went into my Aunt's school with her and helped her get a lot of paperwork done. It was nice to be useful and to help her.

On Thursdays at my Grandma's place they have Mass for the residents, and so my aunt suggested that I go out there to surprize my Grandma. I did and was so happy that I could! The residents were all every excited to see a young person there, and my grandma was pretty surprized. One man told me that there is a tradition that the youngest person does the readings and asked how old I was. I told him that I was 107 and everyone thought that was the funniest thing it the world.

I am super happy because I have been able to go to Mass a lot lately! And last night a church was having adoration too! Oh! I was so wonderful to go. And I realized how spoiled I had been with perpetual adoration at my church in Des Moines.

Well, I should go help my family with yardwork now. I hope you all have a very nice day!

Congratualtions on graduation today, Emily!

God bless you!